<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>frets on the strings of your heart by nottesilhouette</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887629">frets on the strings of your heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nottesilhouette/pseuds/nottesilhouette'>nottesilhouette</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, F/M, Marriage Proposal, and love means being free, love means coming home, post-epilogue, these two idiots are undeniably in love, they're building a home, together</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:56:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,387</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887629</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nottesilhouette/pseuds/nottesilhouette</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Eugene proposes (again), there's everything special about it, except nothing (because every moment with Rapunzel is warm and comforting and familiar). This is the kind of night he wants to look forward to having with her every day for the rest of his life, and he plans to. </p><p>The night Rapunzel says yes (finally), nothing is special about it, except everything (because every moment with Eugene is special and new and exciting). This is the kind of night she wants to come home to every day for the rest of her life, and she plans to, too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>frets on the strings of your heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicFren/gifts">MusicFren</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eugene has new callouses on his fingers, built deep and plucky right at the tops of his fingers like the smoothed down surface of a pebble by the sea. Rapunzel knows this because she knows his hands better than she knows her own, the way his fingers fit into all the spaces between hers, the way he squeezes her palms and taps at the back of her hand, the way his nails dig into the soft skin and the way he bends and unfolds her fingers as a fidget. The swipe of his thumb across her knuckles feels rougher and yet smooth at the same time, and she wonders at it.</p><p>She’s away from home so much these days. The sun catches golden in her hair when she steps through the door, dripping honey more jeweled than the crown Eugene plucks from her temples, heavier than the migraine pulsing at her brain when she comes home each evening. Rapunzel likes the way the candlelight flickers across the features of Eugene’s pretty face, the way he plays with the shadows dancing across the walls to tell stories, the way the light pushes his eyebrows higher when he waggles them. But she misses the brightness in his expressions in daylight. She misses the way his laugh carries on the wind. She misses the glimmer in his eyes before he pulls his lips into some faux-serious mien and the way he flails when Max pushes into him. Mostly, she just misses him.</p>
<hr/><p>Rapunzel steps through the door and copper tangs on the back of his tongue as his heart leaps into his throat. Breath rushes into his body, a tornado through each cell, a whirlwind of tension and stress getting swept away. Eugene clears his throat, counts to ten, and breathes out. He waits for the moment she comes and fits into his side the way she always has, knees tucked into his stomach and hair like a blanket around them both. He itches to curl his arm around her shoulders, to bury his fingers in the nest of hair snarled around the combs of her crown and soothe the aching pain, carry the burden she’s brought home nestled safe in her mind.</p><p>He’s at home so often these days. His footsteps leave marks in the dust he’s banished to the corners and his fingerprints are sticky over every appliance in the kitchen. Rapunzel exclaims over every new dish, pulling faces and producing noises each more ridiculous than the last. Eugene likes the way she doesn’t stop until he laughs, and then laughs so hard with him that she can’t breathe through her giggles. But he misses the way her ankles would tap out a drumbeat against the cabinets as she kicked her feet from the counters. He misses the way her hair would leave tracks through the dust she swept. He misses the relaxation in her shoulders and the way she threw himself into his arms and sent him falling against the couch, falling into her arms, falling into love again. He misses her.</p>
<hr/><p>Rapunzel sinks into the soft cushion of dining room chairs and kicks her legs over Eugene’s lap, stops the bouncing of his legs with her heel pressed into his thigh. His fingers, long and slim and calloused now, wrap around her ankle to push and pull and draw out the pain in gentle coaxing motions. It feels good. Dinner is on the table, plates set out and ready. After this, she’ll have someone to do the dishes with. That feels good too. Rapunzel has spent all day cataloguing events from the castle that she wants to tell Eugene, about <em>this</em> policy and <em>that</em> ride out to the woods and the way the head guard made that one face again when she got distracted midway through his ramble about safety to daydream about Eugene and told him so when he asked.</p><p>He’s been busy too. He tells her about the floorboard he fixed so it doesn’t squeak anymore and laughs about how Red and Angry have been taking shameless advantage of it already. His arms flail wide and open like his grin when he tells her what they stole, the way he chased them down and flung them in the air until they gave it back, too exhausted by laughter to fight any longer. He tells her they asked for her and rushes off to bring something to show her.</p><p>Rapunzel worries idly for a moment that her feet will come down hard onto the chair with the way he’s moving, quick and excited. He sets them down gently and drops a kiss on her head as he rushes by. She has nothing to worry about. Eugene will take care of her.</p>
<hr/><p>Eugene pads back into the room, calmer now with the sprint up the stairs behind him and offers a necklace for Rapunzel to marvel over. She can see Angry’s metalworking on the chain, smoother now, less rushed, more focused. She tells him so, then points out the glass blown sundrop to suit the chain, and her eyes go bright and excited when she realizes that Red finally <em>got it.</em> Eugene has wanted to see this realization dawn in her like the sun since the kids dropped off the gift. He slips back into his seat and cradles her ankles again, squeezes one gently. He waits for the rush of pride to flush through her body into a rosy afterglow, and when she slumps, the ghost of a grin still playing on her lips, he tugs his own necklace out from under her shirt to show her the matching moon opal charm.</p><p>Rapunzel tackles him, between tears that don’t seem to come from anywhere and muffled shrieks into his shoulder. He twists on the way down and cradles her head, and laughs. When she’s ready, she pulls him up and into her, and pulls him into the kitchen, still laughing, carrying the dishes to the sink.</p><p>Eugene winces at the pile of dishes in and around the sink, the mess on the counters and the heavy pots that are too dry to scrub clean now. Rapunzel bumps into him with a hip and starts running water, presses a towel into his hands and pushes him towards the counters. He has nothing to worry about. Rapunzel will take care of him. </p>
<hr/><p>            Eugene ends up with his shirt soaked even though Rapunzel asked him to dry, and she giggles every time she glances over. She spent the post-dinner cleaning up perched on the counter next to the sink, scrubbing at dishes and flicking suds at him. She lets him pull her into a hug when it’s all over though and laughs at the water staining her dress too. He’s still tugging at her wrists, at her waist, so she trips and tumbles after him, out the back door, into soft grass and worn out dirt paths, and then she’s swinging her hair into treetops and sprinting through laughter and weaving in, out, around the path that Eugene is sprinting. The wind rushes through her body. She’s home. She’s <em>free.</em> She’s with Eugene, and she loves him.</p>
<hr/><p>            Rapunzel slumps into a happy sigh when she skids onto the tiles of the castle roof, and Eugene doesn’t know when she started pulling him along. They end up basking in the last of the sun sinking down and she’s glowing brighter than the skies, than all the stars just beginning to peek through the rosy dusk blushing across the horizon. He curls up in her lap and lets her play with his hair, nudges at her hand when she idly stops. She’s too warm for him to feel the bite of wind, and he’s breathless but not from the wild chase through the forest. Warmth floods his body. He’s free. He’s <em>home</em>. He’s with Rapunzel, and he loves her.</p>
<hr/><p>The day slips into night. Eugene watches Rapunzel still enthralled by the open skies after all these years and waits until her attention catches on a shooting star to raise his hand behind him. Lanterns rise, flood the sky with light and hope and kindness. Eugene rolls off her lap onto one knee, holds up a ring, and grins. Let’s make our home together, he asks. Let’s find the world together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy birthday, Music Fren.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>